10+ Must-Have WordPress Plugins and Tools for Business Sites

WordPress is the most widely-used Content Management Systems in the world. It controls 60% of the CMS market, and well-established organizations like CNN, TIME, and TED use it to power their sites.

Simply put, WordPress is one of the best CMS platforms today.

But have you ever wondered why do you even need so many plugins if WordPress is such an impressive platform? Now that’s an interesting question and the question is rather simple:

If you want to take your website to the next level as quick as possible, you need a few specific plugins.

And don’t get us wrong – on its own, WordPress is an impressive platform. However, you can still have some use out of thousands of free plugins out there.

In order to help you make the most out of your business website, here are10+ must-have WordPress plugins and tools every site owner should have in their arsenal.

1. Kiwi Social Share

Starting our list for the must have WordPress plugins with Kiwi Social Share, which is a WordPress plugin used to integrate social media buttons in a website.

It comes in a free/Lite version and a premium one. Kiwi includes lots of social networks among which are: Facebook, Google+, Skype, Whatsapp, Telegram, Email, Pinterest, Twitter, and a few others. Each social network has an on and off button, color customization options, floating bar option, and a monochrome style option. Apart from these, you can also customize the form of the social media buttons and change their location. This is a plugin you do not want to miss out on.

2. Speed Booster Pack

Speed Booster Pack is without doubt one of the must-have WordPress plugins for your website. No matter the industry or field you are in, a slow loading website can affect your business in a negative way. With Speed Booster Pack you can improve your overall speed without any additional costs, as this plugin is free.

To give you a taste of what it offers, Speed Booster Pack comes with features to move scripts to the footer, remove jQuery strings, minify HTML, remove WordPress emoji scripts, remove RSD links, minify inline CSS styles, and much more. Highly recommended to have!

3. Simple Author Box

Simple Author Box is a WordPress author box plugin that displays an eye-catching and professional author box at the end of your posts and pages. It currently has two version: a free and a premium one. With the free version you have control over the typography used, appearance customizations, color options, free support, manually insertion, and various other settings. The premium version includes even more features for appearance, colors, author link behavior, guest authors, popular author widget, and post co-authors. This is a must have if you need a beautiful and responsive WordPress author box.

4. Business Directory Plugin

While it’s possible to run a business site without the first plugin on our list, it’s certainly a lot harder. Business Directory Plugin is there to help you add a professional directory to your WordPress site. You can use it for business directories, local directories, and Yellow Pages-style directory, among others.

It also has a number of useful features. For instance, one feature allows users to generate money through submissions. The free version has everything you need to get started, however, if you want to access some features like payment getaways, ratings, and Google Maps, you’ll have to pay a fee.

5. Akismet

Almost every comment section on the Internet is filled with spam. That’s why you need the ultimate spam-eliminating tool to help you keep your comment section as clean as possible. Akismetwill capture spam comments before they even show up on your website.

The best thing about Akismet is that it comes with the self-hosted version of WordPress. That means, if you want to start using this plugin, all you need to do is activate its API. The basic plan is completely free, however, there are certain unique features that come with a monthly fee.

6. JetPack

Jetpack is one of the most feature-rich plugins out there. Some people will argue that Jetpack has a lot of useless features that will only slow your site down. However, the fact is, you don’t have to activate all of the features – only active the ones you need and your site will run smoothly.

So what are some of the standout features that come with this plugin? You have website stats, comment filtering, publicizing posts, brute-force protection, and many, many more. Simply put – Jetpack has it all. And we’re talking about the free version here – the paid plan comes with a ton more.

7. W3 Total Cache

The word “cache” confuses a lot of people, which is why so many people wonder – why is Total Cache so important to their business? Let’s do some explaining first. In essence, caching is storing bits of a certain site on a user’s device. Furthermore, the cache is there to increase your page loading speed.

Whether you understand the concept or not, you still know that a person can’t afford to have a slow loading website in this day and age. Most people will simply leave your site if it fails to load in a second or two, and search engines will send your site into oblivion.

8. Symple Shortcodes

If you’re a small business owner, you’re probably working with only a few people on a limited budget. That means, you probably don’t have enough funds to hire a designer to add some elements you want to your website. And that’s where Symple Shortcodes comes into play.

You can use this plugin to add elements and features to your site without taking time to learn code. For instance, with this plugin, you’ll be able to affix a Google map anywhere on your site. Moreover, you can also place dividers, customer testimonials, and columns on your website.

9. YARPP

Despite its overly complicated name – YARPstands for Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – this plugin will attract more people to your content and significantly increase your user engagement. Of course, the default location is below the content, but you have a number display locations for related posts.

YARPP comes with one-of-a-kind template system, which allows users to customize how their readers see results. And you don’t have to do anything manually – thanks to its unique algorithm, the plugin gathers all the related posts for you.

10. MonsterInsights

Even if you’re an ordinary blogger if you want to stay relevant, you need to keep track of your website traffic. And if you’re a business owner, keeping track of website statistics is even more important. Analyzing your traffic will help you understand your target audience better. MonsterInsights is probably the best Google Analytics plugins for WordPress-powered sites.

It allows you to find out how customers find your site in a matter of minutes. This allows you to focus on things that keep them coming back. With a few clicks, you can install the plugin, set it up, and start reading your Analytics reports within your WordPress dashboard. Can’t get much better than that.

11. WooCommerce

If you want to build an e-commerce website, you definitely need to know about WooCommerce. Of course, you can always link your site to a Shopify store, however, WooCommerce makes the whole ordeal much simpler. Heck, you can have a fully functional web store within five minutes.

Some of the more noticeable features include free themes, payment getaways, an intuitive dashboard, and plenty of other premium add-ons that will allow you to manage your store with ease. At the moment, the plugin has more than 3 million active users (and counting). When it’s all said and done, this is basically the only e-commerce plugin you’ll ever need for your WordPress site.

12. WP Members

If you want to build a membership-based business site, you have to be careful. Building one of these sites from scratch takes a lot of time, effort, and money. On the other hand, you can simply use theWP-membership plugin and have it do all the dirty work for you. This will not only save you a few weeks but will also save you a lot of precious money.

WP-members are not only powerful and feature-rich, but it’s also pretty easy to install and use. Some of the more useful features include a sidebar login widget, registration notifications, Shortcodes, the ability to block certain users, custom registrations, and user notifications.

13. Yoast SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is pretty important if you want to be noticed online. It includes the optimization of titles, placement of keywords, submission of sitemaps, so on and so forth. Basically, SEO takes a lot of work.

Fortunately for you, this plugin pats all that action under one roof. What’s more, Yoast SEO measures the readability of your articles, checks the keyword density, and assesses whether or not you’re your content is properly optimized for your audience.

14. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a great tool perfect for converting abandoning visitors into subscribers. This plugin is very popular and a must have for any business. Apart from growing your mailing list, you will also surge your page views, decrease cart abandonment, and shoot up your sales conversion.

OptinMonster offer you the possibility to A/B test your concepts and see which one works the best. It is also tested and compatible with all major plugins including, of course, WooCommerce. Try it today!

15. WPForms

WPForms is one of the easiest and intuitive form plugins you can find. As a business owner, intuitive contact forms are a must because you want it to be easy for your clients to reach out to you. With WPForms you can do just that.

WPForms comes with various form templates you can choose from, as well as spam protection, and a responsive and mobile friendly design. Additionally, it can be used for payments, donations, and more. If you are planning to create high performance forms, this plugin has your back in this as well, with its smart conditional logic.

16. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an email marketing service provider plugin that helps you send professional and engaging emails to your subscribers. Done are the days when you had to spend hours creating modern and attractive emails. With Constant Contact you can easily choose one of the available templates and then customize it easily with the drag and drop editor. This incredible plugin has tons of features and you should check it out asap.

17. Sucuri

You should not hold back when it comes to your website’s security. This security plugin is one of the best out there and it will protect your business from ill intent. It can clean your hacked website from malwares and protect it from DDoS, brute force attacks. It also prevents hackers from taking advantage of your website’s vulnerabilities.

Apart from being a security plugin, Sucuri also creates backups and helps speed up your website. Their support team is always ready to help with quick and on point replies. If you are not satisfied with it, you can always get a refund within 30 days, thanks to their 30 days money back guarantee.

18. Sleeknote

Sleeknote is among the best plugins when it comes to creating beautiful and intuitive forms. It is incredibly easy to install and use, and will help you design a way to turn visitors into subscribers. There is no need to have any programming experience before hand as it comes with a simple drag and drop builder. In mere minutes, you will have unique and outstanding forms.

This PRO plugin is 100% responsive and will adapt to all resolutions and devices. If you are still unsure of it, the team behind Sleeknote are so confident in their product that they offer a 7 days free trial for testing purposes before committing to buying. You have to try this one out!

The Bottom Line

These 10+ must have WordPress plugins can help you boost your site and in turn, improve your bottom line without hiring an SEO company, learning code, or spending a dime. Of course, some of these plugins have premium add-ons that will cost you, however, they are not mandatory.

In our opinion, the plugins on the list are a must-have for all new business owners but you don’t have to install them all. Our recommendation is to try all of them out, pick a few that work best for your website, and move on from there.

We hope you found this article helpful. Don’t hesitate to tell us about some of your favorite WordPress tools and plugins in the comment section below.

Editorial Team

The editorial team watches over all the content that gets published on the MachoThemes blog. You can get in touch with us via our contact form. This author box is generated using Simple Author Box plugin, available for FREE on WordPress.org.